


The Domestic Life Of Stephanie Brown

by Ducky_Dynasty



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Parent Arthur Brown, Bad Parenting, Drug Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Hurt Stephanie Brown, Hurt/Comfort, Stephanie Brown Needs a Hug, This Is STUPID
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26705545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ducky_Dynasty/pseuds/Ducky_Dynasty
Summary: From 9 to 19, this is snippet of Stephanie's life over the year's.OrStephanie Brown needs a goddamn hugTrigger Warning: Abuse, drug addiction
Relationships: Crystal Brown & Stephanie Brown, Stephanie Brown & Alfred Pennyworth, Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain & Barbara Gordon, Stephanie Brown & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Dick Grayson
Comments: 10
Kudos: 56





	The Domestic Life Of Stephanie Brown

**Author's Note:**

> Its 1 am don't ask me to go through and check for errors. No. Just don't do it.
> 
> TW: Abuse, it's not light abuse, it's just 7,000 words of angst and abuse.

Stephanie is nine and her dad is home and she's been locked in the closet. She tried to stand up for herself and was now sporting an impressive split lip and bruised cheek. 

She's learned to count the seconds now, marking the minutes down in lines via a kitchen knife where the wall meets the floor. She can't see in the closet, but she can feel them. Fifteen hours and she's already gone to the loo, in the bucket by the back that she's learned to hide there and empty when she eventually gets let out.

It's nearing more than thirty-two hours now and she still hasn't been let out, the cupboard smells awful and her mum has left the house, her father hasn't been home since last night, she knows when he gets back he'd be drunk.

Stephanie is nine years old and she finds a screwdriver in the closet, she removes the handle best she can and the light hurts her eyes.

She reattaches it and is glad it's a Saturday because the teachers are always mad when she's late, never mind the fact that's it near lunchtime and that would earn her detention anyway.

She empties the bucket and fills it with water to let it soak, she goes to her room and looks at the flashlight there, her father would definitely beat her for having it. He'd say sorry. He always does. But, that wasn't worth it.

She goes downstairs and finds, to her dismay, that there's no food in the cupboards yet again, and there's no money in any of the normal hiding spots to buy groceries with.

She sighs to herself and grabs her own set of keys that she had gotten made after too many instances of being left outside when she came home too late, her knees stung with the reminder of last time.

She goes into town, to one of the closer soup kitchens to beg for food, her pride became a second thought too long ago to care.

One of the young women hands her a disposable bowl kindly. She was not the only child in line. 

She sat down on the side of the road to have it before passing it back with a muttered thanks, she left and went to the library because her dad would probably still be a while and the house was boring.

She looks between the children's section and the lines of educational books she never understands and she can't take home to study and the adult's fiction section she's yet to explore and sets off down the shelves taller than herself, she picks up a book called  _ The Hobbit _ and it sounds funny and she curls herself up in the corner of the library and is less than halfway through the book and has cried twice by the time the library is closing.

She tells the librarian she doesn't have a card and can't sign it out, the lady puts a bookmark in it and tells her she can continue when she comes back tomorrow and Stephanie nods, thanks her and leaves.

It's too late to think she can make it home before her father who is probably already there, the best she can wish for is that he's too drunk to notice her absence. She doesn't get what she wishes for.

Her dad hits her but doesn't lock her in the closet so instead, she gets to run to her room. The window is open and it's cold and she grabs her blanket and is about to sit on the roof again and look for Batman. But she is almost ten. She needs to grow up.

She shuts the window and closes the door as much as she's allowed and changes into her pyjamas and brushes her hair.

She lies in bed until she hears her mum come home and her dad starts yelling and the front door slams shut and shakes the house. But it isn't her dad that leaves and she creeps to her window and her mum is outside and she is crying.

Stephanie lets herself open the window and reminds herself that this isn't for Batman tonight, her mum spots her and seems relieved.

"Stephanie, baby," she says tearily. "My pills, I need my pills. Can you get them for me, honey?" Stephanie nods and scampers back inside.

Quietly she makes it to the bannister and sees her dad watching sports downstairs.

She slips into the upstairs bathroom and opens the medicine cabinet, she picks up as many of the bottles as she can and creeps back out her window and passes them to her mom.

In the morning her dad is gone and so is her mom and there's still no money and no food. She goes to the library and misses the soup kitchen because she's busy reading and she finishes the book slowly but gets it done that day. The librarian smiles and says there's more in the series and Stephanie gets given  _ The Fellowship Of The Ring _ . That one's just as hard and once again the kind librarian puts a bookmark in it and puts it behind the desk for her and Stephanie thanks her again.

Her dad isn't home and her mum is asleep on the couch and she has school tomorrow so she goes to bed without much fuss and doesn't get breakfast in the morning either. 

It's just as boring as last weeks lessons and because her parents forgot to pay the school again she gets sent home with a note for them and having had no lunch. 

There's food at home again at least today and she passes her mom the note even though she looks hazy. She doesn't say anything. Stephanie doesn't think she realises she's been handed anything.

There's a cut on Crystal's cheek though and Stephanie fetches a plaster to put on it. Her mother still doesn't move and so she makes ramen noodles for dinner and sets a bowl out for her dad and hands one to her mom and eats while doing her homework before leaving to the library.

The librarian hands her the book and Stephanie once again curls up in a corner and reads, it's easier with the practice from the few days previous and the lady keeps the library open a bit longer so she can finish it properly because she's so close. She thanks the lady again who says her name is Barbara. Barbara uses a wheelchair. Stephanie has seen kids in her school in them. They're common enough with the villains and all.

She goes home and her dad is there but he's asleep on the couch and her mother is on the stairs. Stephanie puts a blanket over them before going to her own room.

The pattern continues until her Birthday, they haven't eaten in almost a week, her mom doesn't seem to have noticed the lack of food and her dads back in prison. Stephanie has finished Lord of The Rings and has started working again as a cleaner for one of their neighbours, she also babysits most evenings. She tells the kids stories of Frodo and Gandalf and makes her own up when she runs out.

They don't celebrate her birthday until a week later because her mom forgot it again and she doesn't tell anyone else when it is. 

The birthday they do have is small, Stephanie gets a new purple scrunchy and hair clips, they toast ready-made waffles and her mum whips up mashed potatoes. Stephanie loves it.

—

She's twelve and has given up on Batman and Robin ever coming to save her. Her mother has hit her for the first time in months and she's sporting a black eye because of it. 

She's stopped going to the library and she's picked piano back up, the teacher says she's a prodigy. Her gymnastics teacher hates her though but that's okay because Stephanie is still one of the best in her class.

Her dad comes home a week later and throws her out of the house because they took the door off the closet since they needed firewood during last year winter. It's still only just turning spring and she curls herself up under the awning to get away from the rain as best as she can, hidden behind a plant pot. She's stopped trying to climb into her bedroom because she broke her ankle last time and her dad refused to take her to the hospital and her mum had been in rehab at the time so she bandaged it with what they had and tried to get through P.E. the next day and ended up sitting on the bleachers.

So she curls further into herself and tries to not shiver, she sleeps badly and gets let in the next morning by her mother after her dad leaves again and she changes and does her best to warm up before going to school, her fingers ache still but she manages to get through piano lessons and complete the two minutes of prelude in d-flat major, op. 28 no. 15 or the ‘raindrop prelude’ by Chopin with a beauty that leaves most of the other kids stunned and her teacher applauding her.

She almost passes out in Gymnastics because she hasn't eaten in four days but she just says she's tired from homework and she doesn't really want to understand why she lies.

She walks home and ends up on a fire escape after narrowly dodging a man that was following her. She jumps onto another roof before scrambling back to the pavement and continuing her journey home. Her dad is out but her mum is just as bad now.

Stephanie has to go hunting for her and finds her in the bath that's full but her head isn't above the water.

She thinks the worst and as panic sets in she runs to pull her mother out of the water.

The arms of her Crystal lashed out at her. "Can't I take a bath in peace!" She yells and a flailing arms smacks Stephanie across her jaw and she tells herself it was just an accident. "Go clean up! Make yourself useful brat! Don't just try and ruin my relaxation!" She snaps and it's loud and Stephanie worries about the neighbours and leaves quickly with a million apologies falling from her lips and sets herself to work cleaning.

Once the floors were spotless and the couches neat she set herself to making dinner while she did homework. She'd been getting better. Her B minuses turning into A's as she started to figure out the work, the science teacher said she was making her way up to top set science and she was already in top set English, mathematics was still trouble but she was figuring it out. She figured that was the reason her mom still didn't want to help her with homework.

She finished her work and moved onto her projects before dinner was done.

Her mother thanked her for cooking and cleaning the living room, soft hands smoothing over her hair and Stephanie let herself lean into the touch that disappeared seconds later.

They set the table together and when her dad came home he didn't seem completely drunk, she smiled at him and gave him a hug before fetching a beer at his ask. He wasn't drunk yet. But Stephanie still knew better than to deny him anything. Maybe today would still be good anyway. That hope went out the window as soon as her mom opened her mouth.

"So, Arthur, how was work? I still haven't had that paycheck you promised a month ago"

"Honestly woman, don't you understand time, the check hasn't come yet because it's not the end of the month- get me another one girl"

Stephanie does and sits down to eat but soon found herself too sick to, what with her parents yelling at each other so much. 

She left the table soon after, knowing she'd have to come down to clean up again but she didn't much care at that very moment.

She sat against her door, the pillow she slept on clutched tightly to her chest and she heard a plate shatter and a scream of pain and more yelling. She clung to it tighter and tried to muffle her sobs with the soft item.

Hours later it had calmed down, her mother came into her room, she seemed guilty. "I'm sorry, Stephie," she said sweetly and Stephanie tried desperately to ignore the bruises on her mother and the pang in her chest that knew she was lying and ached with that knowledge. Instead, she let herself believe it. 

The woman knelt down and hugged the girl close, "we'll be okay one day, don't worry"

Spoiler Alert: They weren't.

—

She's fourteen and she's lost hope in not just Batman and Robin but her father too, officially that is, she hates him in a way she can't describe but she loves him with an intensity she wished didn't exist.

She wanted her dad to stop, she wasn't sure if gone was right but she let the hate bleed through because that was easier than admitting that there was a part of her that still loved a criminal. How would they even look at her?

She went home afterwards, a chain of bruises around her neck. Her mother was on the couch when she came down and she looked disappointed and furious.

"Where have you been?" She asked, quiet and airy and Stephanie flinched because she sounded sober.

"When was the last time you brushed your hair?" She changed the subject and it worked so easily. Definitely still coming down from the high then.

Crystal's hand went up to her matt of hair and Stephanie disappeared a moment before coming back with a brush, her mother shifted and let her at it.

It took a while and Stephanie was so, so tired by the end of it but her mother's hair was soft and smooth, she braided it loosely, making sure not to pull the stands too much. 

Her mother turned back to her, eyes unfocused. "Thank you, Stephanie," she said, her voice still so whisper-like and hardly audible.

"I left your dinner in the fridge, did you have any?" She asked and saw her mother shake her head slowly.

She got up and dashed to the kitchen and stuck the plate of cottage pie into the microwave, she comes back with a plate of steaming food and a fork.

She hands it over to her mother who takes it numbly. 

"Stephanie?"

"Yes, mom?"

"I need my pills" and Stephanie wants to cry but her mother doesn't need that right now. "Please, Stephanie, baby girl, I need my pills" and there are tears on her mother's cheeks.

"Can we just watch a movie instead?" She tries to bargain and reaches out for the remote to turn on the TV and there are old reruns of Star Trek on and she wants desperately for this to be able to work. "Look, you like the one with Picard don't you?"

Her mother is still staring at her though. "Stephanie, please" Crystal begs and she wants to be stronger, to not look at her and keep staring at the TV screen but her eyes turn to her mother. "Stephanie, baby" and her hands are shaking when she puts them on top of her daughters, "please, I need them" and she looks so close to sobbing and Stephanie doesn't want to be the cause of that.

But, "mom, you need to go to work tomorrow" because the cupboards are nearly empty, she doesn't say, because I've had to drop jobs to help put dad away, because I can't keep up with the bills anymore and I need your help and she wants to say it all but she can't, she knows she can't.

"Please" and her lips are shaking and Stephanie feels her stomach twist in guilt.

"Okay, okay, I'll go get them. By the bedside table, right?" At her mother's nod, she gets up quickly and runs upstairs to fetch the bottles and notices with distress that there aren't all that many left. She takes a few pills down to her mother who hasn't touched the food yet.

She passes them over and her mother takes them, "you should sleep, Stephanie, you've got school in the morning" and she wants to resist, wants to make sure her mom will be okay, but she doesn't want to make anything worse.

"Okay, mom" she gives the woman a kiss, "good night, wake me if anything comes up" and she makes her way up the stairs slowly and half looking over her shoulder for her mother.

She is awoken by Crystal later, she is teary-eyed. She sits up and her mother takes a seat next to her and takes her hand. "Your father- he's- he's been put in prison"

Stephanie rubs her eyes and gives her an odd look. "Aren't you happy?" She yawns and she feels herself stiffen because she knows that was the wrong thing to say and her mother's face reflects that and Stephanie hates herself for it.

The punch comes and her eyes well up with tears because nose shots suck. Her mom grabs her hair and she doesn't bother fighting back as her head gets slammed into the bedroom wall. At least she knows her mother got herself more pills.

"How dare you!" She shouts, "and after all your father's done for you!" Stephanie wants to ask what that is but she doesn't because there's no point unless she wants to get something broken. Instead, she lets her mother drop her head and hears her stomp out the door and she feels ill. She settles back into bed and does her best not to cry and instead sleep but it hardly feels like she's gotten any as her alarm goes off for school.

She debates skipping, there's no point in going if you ask her, not when gymnastics and piano lessons stopped almost a year ago now, but her mother needs breakfast and she needs to at least try and convince the woman to go to work.

When Crystal comes down she's humming some song and kisses Stephanie when the girl hands her coffee, she's dressed in her nurse's scrubs and tells Stephanie she loves her when the girl gives her breakfast and as she leaves with a smile and Stephanie lets herself relax, returns the words each time and leaves to school a lot happier—she tries not to think about who caused the bruises she needs to cover up with makeup.

—

She's sixteen and she's  _ tired _ . She's taken up more jobs again on top of her poorly-paying night job as Robin, not to mention the fact that she's still in her top sets and is doing her best to keep it that way.

Her feet ache as she drags herself inside and her mother is pacing the hallway. She happily welcomes Stephanie home and says that she made dinner and Stephanie thinks it's odd because it's three in the morning but then remembers she forgot to make earlier and is just about to apologise for it when her mother says something that makes her stop.

"I splurged a bit on the cheese" and it's the same thing she used to do when Stephanie was younger and nothing was so bad. "We won't tell your father," and now she doesn't know what to do because how can her mom forget that her dads not here and it's better that way and Stephanie looks her mother in the eye and realises what's happened because she thought she was getting better. She thought everything was getting  _ better _ .

"Mom, how old am I?" She asks and pushes away everything in her so she doesn't cry.

Her mom smiles, "you're four, silly" and it takes everything she has to not let the dam break.

"Of course," she says, "I'm tired, can I eat later?" she asks and her mum nods. 

"Would you like to watch a movie?" And they end up curled together on the couch watching  _ The Hobbit _ and Stephanie feels a warmth from her she'd forgotten but it was still so cold, still unreal.

She met up with Cass the next day because it was a Saturday afternoon and Saturday was when she could train now but only after work. Cass took one look at her and Stephanie knew that all of her attempts to seem normal and relaxed had just been blown because it's Cass, innocent, sweet Cassandra who deserves nothing less than everything good and all that's right with the world and she asks Stephanie if she's okay and she doesn't cry because she can't but does admit that nothing is getting better and Cass hugs her so tight and Stephanie wants nothing but to let it last forever but it doesn't.

They spar for hours and Cassandra is going easier on her than normal and she still can't land a hit but it makes her feel better in a way she can't really explain.

—

She's seventeen and she hates it, she hates the sun and the animals and the once in a lifetime opportunities, she kicks and rages and screams against it all and lets it all out at Leslie because she's in Africa and she hates it because it's not  _ home. _

—

She's nineteen and her mom is healthy and happy, her clothes don't hang off of her and she can take care of herself and she makes dinner and breakfast and goes to work and Stephanie has to stop herself from asking her why only when she was dead her mom managed to fix herself up.

She looks at herself in the mirror and she's one of the two reasons her mother started using and she goes past the graveyard and knows that that's the only reason she stopped and she wants to scream and shout and cry.

She gets made waffles in bed and it takes her an age to realise that her mom is being a mom and she wants to know why  _ now _ .  _ Why _ she can only muster it in herself to make dinner and have food in the cupboard all week every month and there's a part of Stephanie that knows that if she stayed her mom might start up again and so she doesn't. 

She hangs out at the manor instead and learns all of Damian's favourite pencil brands by name and starts up the piano again, her hands are impossibly healthy after all the pain and torment they've been through, after what's been done to them by people without love.

She knows that Dick doesn't entirely like her and that Alfred is only now warming up. She knows that they're treading on eggshells around her, still. But that's okay because she's used to it. She's on eggshells around them too anyway, just less apologetic about breaking a couple of dozen.

Barbara is great too but she's started associating her with more than a big sister but Stephanie isn't sure what that could be. What else could be so good and supportive and unwavering?

At the end of the day, that's the only time Stephanie really bothers to see her mom and she can't entirely stand it because it's a stranger. Because it's not the woman she knew and left behind and she thought things would be better when her mom was but now, staring at her, healthy and happy and cooking dinner, she knows that it has to be something else but she can't figure out what and the realisation that it's her. 

That it's her causing the rifts between them now is almost too much to take and so she disappears before her mom ever knew she had come home.

Back to her window that she still keeps open and she can climb into it now, is bigger enough to reach and trained enough to keep the silence and she slips in and grabs her oldest Winnie The Pooh plush and leaves because she can't stay in a house where she is the issue because she knows what being that does, she shows up at the manor announced and with a barely formed plan in her head because Barbara made her take a night off and finds out Damian is sick. 

She declares a movie night instead of her usual go-to's and bundles him up in a million blankets because the manor has always had so many along with the plush she gave him a 'present' and hauls him into the lounge.

She turns on Brave and instantly sees Damian connect with Merida. She idly runs her fingers through his hair as she watches, Merida's mom is mean, by all means, but not even Mother Gothel could ever fully meet either of their expectations for bad parenting. She could save Tangled though until Dick was here.

She felt the bundled up boy jump when Mor'du made his big scare when Merida finds the cracked stone and feels herself tense up when they go to kill Merida's mother in bear form.

But the movie doesn't tell her what to do after that, there's no guide on how to deal with people after they change but it wasn't for her, it was for Damian who's currently demanding biscuits.

She swoops him up and he grumbles because he meant to let him out of these blankets  _ Brown _ . But she pays him no mind as she sets him down in the kitchen and hunts for the tin. She makes him wait though and busy's herself with making them warm milk. They sit in comfortable silence and he even takes the medicine Alfred asked her to give him with relative ease.

"Come on then Gremlin, time to get you upstairs and in bed," she tells him when their both finished and he's trying to not doze.

"I want to wait to make sure Grayson gets home safe" and she smiles because he'd never admit that while not ill and it's cute and picks him up again, making her way to the Drawing room and switching off lights as they go. "What are you doing now Brown? He's not gonna be able to see" she hears him fending off a yawn and is glad he can be that relaxed around her at least.

"No, but I'll leave the drawing-room lights on so he knows where we are" Damian nods, seemingly appeased as she settles him on the couch, she weighs up her options and decides that sleeping close to him would help no one and so settles herself on the other end of the truly ridiculous sized sofa and curls into herself to keep warm because all the blankets in the manor are far too thick to make her feel comfortable.

After a while, she sees that Damian still hasn't fallen asleep and so gets up and moves to the piano in the corner of the room and she knows for a fact that he's going to fall asleep because this has worked on every child she's ever babysat and even helped settle her mom on truly awful days. The difference is that she'd be playing it herself.

The piece itself was an early romantic written around about 1838, Chopin had declared that it was a translation of the rain, not an actual imitation of it because that would be childish. She'd memorized the keys long ago, the first piano solo she was ever really allowed to do herself.

And by the end of the seven minutes, she glances over to see Damian sound asleep and smiles at the sight. She moves silently into an armchair that's easier to curl herself into and falls asleep.

She's awoken by a shake on her shoulder and her hand moves to wrap around the wrist of the unfamiliar hand, her eyes have flown up to meer baby blues and it's Dick, that's it, just Dick, but something about that hasn't quite registered.

"It's me" he assures and something about hearing his voice lets her grip loosen, "it's me Stephanie" and she lets go and realises how long it's been since someone new has touched her.

"Sorry" she apologises and her dark blues flick over to where Damian was and she sits up further when he's not there.

Dick's hand moves to grasp her's though and pull her up. "Don't worry, I took him up to bed. I need to talk to you though"

She gave him a raised eyebrow. Did he not want her in the manor? Whatever, she'd deal with that when they got there.

He led her out of the drawing-room and back into the kitchen, he handed her a mug of earl grey tea and took a seat on the counter with his own and she finally registered a number of things. One, it was probably around quarter past four in the morning because that's the time Batman usually gets of patrol, two her phone's probably blown up with messages from her mum because she normally gets home an hour before Batman but generally goes out an hour before as well, three he was definitely exhausted and must have some serious beef with her from either Bruce or Tim—probably both all things known about the two—and was dealing with it at a far too early hour. 

"Why are you here Stephanie?" He asks and she's stunned because damn be a bit more direct but she figures she gets what he means and he probably doesn't want her to dance around the bush.

"Well," she began because she could be as annoying as she wanted about this as far as she was concerned, "it all started on the day I was born"

He laughed at that and obviously had to make an effort to sober up, "no, no-" he chuckled again. "Okay, that was my bad, too open a question. I meant, what are you doing  _ here _ , at the manor. It's your day off isn't it?"

"You're meant to be asleep, aren't you?" She shot back.

"Touchè, but really, why are you here? You don't really ever go home,"

She took a long sip of her tea debating over what to say, she knew why, but how to explain was something else entirely. She ran through every possible outcome of what she was about to say and decided on screw it because she really didn't know enough about him to make assumptions on his judgment on her home life and thought processes. "Nothing, " she shrugged, "I guess I just don't feel comfortable at home anymore" she finished off her tea with one last swig.

"Coming home from the dead tends to be weird, " he acknowledges, "and while you're doing better than Jason, I'm guessing there's a little more to it then no longer used to be being in your childhood home?"

She tapped her fingers against the porcelain and sat next to him on the counter. "Okay, so, it's my mom, right?" She saw him nod out of the corner of her eye. "For my whole life we've had this dynamic that's gone a certain way and its always been like that and I thought, coming back, that it'd be the same, maybe she'd be worse but I could deal but she's not. She's better, she's- she's great, she's amazing, but she doesn't feel like her"

Dick nodded, "you expected your death to keep her going the same way and now that she isn't you don't know what to do"

Stephanie nodded, "you have no idea how lucky you were. I mean, B could be a hell of a handful but he was kind of better at showing that small bit of emotion he did have, ya know? It's not… suppressed by anything. Well, maybe his insane need for Justice and Vengeance and blah blah blah, Batman speech, blah blah" she joked and tried to give him a small smile to say she wasn't trying to undermine his trauma.

"It's alright Stephanie, I can't say I know what it's like because it was different for you. As soon as we met Bruce we all basically got lifted out of our trauma, he helped us. Sure we got new ones, doing what we do and all, but we always had a home that would understand and take care of us. You didn't get that, you went from one new trauma back to a house of virtual nightmares and I don't think any of us will ever truly understand what that's like. But!" He exclaimed after his depressing and annoyingly accurate little speech—Stephanie wanted to delete whatever section of her file was titled 'home life observations by an asshole'—and carried on in a louder voice than the soft one that reminded her of lullabies. "You sound like your main issue is that you need closer with your mom. Have either of you talked about it since you've been back?"

She shrugged, maybe a tad helpless. "Not really" she admitted.

"Try that, this weekend try and broach the subject with her however you see best fit, alright?" 

Stephanie nodded and grinned at him, "thanks for the pep talk Bat. Mind if I sleep here tonight anyway?"

He nodded jumping off the counter and snatching her mug away from her to put it in the sink. "Of course not, just use one of the spear rooms and not their chair"

"Sure thing boss" she smiled at him and skidded out of the room.

"Oh, and Stephanie?" He called. Stephanie grabbed onto the doorframe seconds before it would be too late. "Your not that bad to talk to, I'm sorry I've been such a pain"

She blinks at him a few times, a little at a loss before registering an  _ apology  _ and nodding. "Thanks, goodnight!" And she disappeared before it could get any more awkward.

She was gone in the morning, she'd left when the sun had only just begun to make the sky a pale grey in preparation for it's rising. Alfred had still been yawning and he offered to call a taxi around for her. He'd never done that when she was Robin. Frankly, she was glad for the change. But she still refused, claiming the walk would do her good.

It does, but she doesn't mention the fact that it's to plan how she's going to approach the conversation with her mother. Clouser, cl-ou-ser. Yeah, no, she'd never actually applied that word to her life before. Great times in the life of Stephanie Royal Hypocrite Brown.

God, he was dead and she was still hanging to turn into Bruce.

She was glad she'd raided Cass's wardrobe, she didn't want to go home in the clothes she'd worn yesterday because her mom would probably think she'd been walking around all night which was not something she needed to worry about. Instead, she was in a blouse Cass had stolen off of her when they were still young and one of her leather jackets that were slightly too big and Cass had definitely stolen off of Barbara, the jeans were a bit tight on Stephanie but Cass's bigger muscle mass meant that Stephanie's height was compensated for. It was definitely a step up from the sports clothes and sweater she always donned after patrol.

When she got to her home she didn't have a plan, her mother was asleep on the couch, she was sitting completely upright, phone in hand and Stephanie debated just putting a blanket over her and letting the woman sleep like she was a little kid again. But she wasn't a little kid. And she couldn't act like it.

She shook her shoulder and watched her mother come too and a part of her wanted to take it back and apologise but this needed to happen, so she bit her tongue and gathered the courage she hadn't had to use yesterday.

"We need to talk," she told her as she began gathering herself.

Crystal sat up properly, straightening herself out and rubbing her eyes before looking at her daughter, she was confused, so obviously innocently confused and a part of Stephanie thought that this was the wrong woman, that she'd walked into the wrong house, that this stranger would correct her and she'd go next door and there her mother would be in a drugged-out haze and would have hardly noticed she was gone. Or dead in the bathtub. God, she was an awful daughter for preferring that idea to just a simple conversation. "Stephanie, is everything okay? Do you need anything?" And why did such a simple question make her so angry and frustrated?

"No, mom, it isn't" and Crystal was on her feet in an instant, hands hovering over her daughter, fretting already starting.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" And Stephanie wanted nothing more at that moment then to lie, to say it was just a rough patrol and to be hugged and soothed and have her mother make her breakfast. But she couldn't. Because as much as she wants it too at the end of the day, it just makes her miserable. And she wonders if that's why she got Crystal as a mother. If she was always just doing what Stephanie wanted.

She stepped away and blinked away the tears, "stop doing that" she said and it sounds watery to even her own ears and she hates it, "stop worrying about me and asking"

And her mother's face fell, "I'm your mom, Steph, I'm just doing my job"

She wants to scream, "no, no your not you were never my mom" and oh she wishes she doesn't have to say that but she needs closer and that means talking about the issue, right? And this is the issue, isn't it? "Why do you only act like it now?"

"Of course I've always been your mom" she claims, "I love you-"

"That's not enough, it's not enough and you know it" and there are tears in the corner of eyes that she wipes away because how dare they make this harder then it already is. "Stop denying it,  _ please _ "

"I raised you! I looked after you! I don't know what more you want from me!" She sounds near hysterical.

"You didn't! I looked after you, I took care of you, you didn't do  _ shit _ " and she didn't bother to stop the tears now, "why can't you admit that? Why can't you say what changed? Why can't you tell me if I'm the issue?"

"Stephanie" and the woman reached for a hug and she found herself backing away and she wanted to be four again. When everything was okay and Batman was going to come save them and her mom would put more cheese then she was meant too into the Mac because Stephanie liked it with extra even though her father didn't want them wasting it. And Stephanie would tie a towel around her throat and play at heroes before her dad would come home. Back when he hurt Crystal and it didn't feel like they were ganging up on her. "Stephanie please, tell me what happened. Why are you so upset?" 

It feels like  _ The Truman Show _ , when everyone was trying to assure him that it was okay despite the fact that it was all so deeply wrong and maybe that would be easier, for the smoke and mirrors to drop and Crystal to not be her mother after all. She wasn't sure what she wanted to do, how she was going to get her mother to admit that what had happened had hurt Stephanie, fuck it had taken until Stephanie died to get her to stop using. She guessed her mom had just denied it having effected her because why would she need to admit it when there was no to admit it too?

"Stephanie?" Crystal tries and she looks so hurt and lost and utterly shattered. She supposed in a way the smoke and mirrors had lifted.

"I love you mom," she tells her, "I love you so much, but I'm not sure I can be here at the moment"

"Stephanie you're overreacting, we can come to some sort of an arrangement can't we darling? I've only just got you back. Please, dear, I love you too much to let you go" and there is every part of Stephanie that knows that's the truth and she hates it.

She weighed her option before deciding on head first confrontation. "Do you love me enough to admit that your addiction hurt me? That I didn't feel safe coming home even with dad gone because you were a bigger gamble?" She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. 

Crystal sunk back down into the couch. There was a silence between them only filled by the ticking clock. "I always had the suspicion" she admits after a while another long silence ensues, this time Stephanie breaks it.

"Is it too big an ask for you to own up to that?"

_ Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick _

"I think I'll need some time"

_ Tick, tick, tick, ti- _

"Is it okay if I have some space while you figure it out?" Because as much as Stephanie is a woman now this is still her mother. She should still get a say.

More than an hour has passed since Stephanie walked through the door when her mother finally gives a soft nod. "Will you promise to at least call?" And there's something about her that looks so old and so empty and Stephanie wants to take everything back to make her smile. But she knows this decision is right, and she can't escape that fact.

"Of course. I'll go pack some of my stuff. Do you think you'll be okay on your own?" She doesn't go up the stairs until there's a minute nod from the older woman.

She only grabs her school backpack and a different bag to throw a few sets of clothes in, her wallet and a few other bits and pieces she wants to keep with her. She stands in her room and she's lost and she doesn't know where she's about to go but she decides to trust herself.

Her mum is still sitting on the couch when she gets back downstairs and she hands her the spear keys she had made herself. "I'll see you around," she says.

"I suppose I will," her mother says and takes the key and she gets walked out of her own front door and it isn't violent but this feels like they've gone rewind on a roller coaster. 

She's hardly walked a block before caving in and calling her emergency contact. They promise to come get her and she feels like she's in school again. She takes a seat on a half wall and waits forever and no time at all for the familiar figure to come into her line of sight.

They've hardly spotted each other before Stephanie is colliding with them best she can and she feels the arms wrap around her tight and comforting and she never wants to let go.

"I want them back," she tells Barbara, "I want Cass and Tim and hell even Bruce" she lets herself cry now, "I want my old life back"

"I know," the older woman tells her, a hand rubbing circles in her back. "I know, we'll be okay."

Spoiler Alert: they were

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Let me die


End file.
